Everyone (and every group) thinks they are rational. This is not a distinctive feature of LW. Christianity and Buddhism make a lot of their rationality. Even Nietzsche acknowledged that it was the rationality of Christianity that led to its intellectual demise (as he saw it), as people relentlessly applied rationality tools to Christianity.
My own model of how rational we are is more in line with Ed Seykota’s (http://www.seykota.com/tribe/TT_Process/index.htm) than the typical geek model that we are basically rational with a few “biases” added on top. Ed Seykota was a very successful trader, featured in the book “Market Wizards” who concluded that trading success is not that difficult intellectually, the issues are all on the feelings side. He talks about trading but the concepts apply across the board.
For everyone who thinks that they are rational, consider a) Are you in the healthy weight range? b) Did you get the optimum amount of exercise this week? c) Are your retirement savings on track? d) Did you waste zero time today? (I score 2⁄4).
Personally I think it would be progress if we took as a starting point the assumption that most of the things we believe are not rational. That everything needs to be stringently tested. That taking someone’s word for it, unless they have truly earned it, does not make sense.
Also: I totally agree with OP that it is routine to see intelligent people who think of themselves as rational doing things and believing things that are complete nonsense. Intelligence and rationality are, to a first approximation, orthogonal.
Everyone (and every group) thinks they are rational. This is not a distinctive feature of LW. Christianity and Buddhism make a lot of their rationality.
To the contrary, lots of groups make a big point of being anti-rational. Many groups (religious, new-age, political, etc.) align themselves in anti-scientific or anti-evidential ways. Most Christians, to make an example, assign supreme importance to (blind) faith that triumphs over evidence.
But more generally, humans are a-rational by default. Few individuals or groups are willing to question their most cherished beliefs, to explicitly provide reasons for beliefs, or to update on new evidence. Epistemic rationality is not the human default and needs to be deliberately researched, taught and trained.
And people, in general, don’t think of themselves as being rational because they don’t have a well-defined, salient concept of rationality. They think of themselves as being right.
To the contrary, lots of groups make a big point of being anti-rational
Here’s a hypothetical for you: Suppose you were to ask a Christian “Do you think the evidence goes more for or more against your belief in Christ?” How do you think a typical Christian would respond? I think most Christians would respond that the evidence goes more in favor of their beliefs.
I think the word “evidence” is associated with being pro-science and therefore, in most people’s heads, anti-religion. So many Christians would respond by e.g. asking to define “evidence” more narrowly before they committed to an answer.
Also, the evidence claimed in favor of Christianity is mostly associated with the more fundamentalist interpretations; e.g. young-earthers who obsess with clearly false evidence vs. Catholics who accept evolution and merely claim a non-falsifiable Godly guidance. And there are fewer fundamentalists than there are ‘moderates’.
However, suppose a Christian responded that the evidence is in the favor of Christianity. And then I would ask them: if the evidence was different and was in fact strongly against Christianity—if new evidence was found or existing evidence disproved—would you change your opinion and stop being a Christian? Would you want to change your opinion to match whatever the evidence turned out to be?
And I think most Christians, by far, would answer that they would rather have faith despite evidence, or that they would rather cling to evidence in their favor and disregard any contrary evidence.
And I think most Christians, by far, would answer that they would rather have faith despite evidence, or that they would rather cling to evidence in their favor and disregard any contrary evidence
I doubt it. That may be how their brains work, but I doubt they would admit that they would cling to beliefs against the evidence. More likely they would insist that such a situation could never happen; that the contrary evidence must be fraudulent in some way.
I actually did ask the questions on a Christian bulletin board this afternoon. The first few responses have been pretty close to my expectations; we will see how things develop.
More likely they would insist that such a situation could never happen; that the contrary evidence must be fraudulent in some way.
That is exactly why I would label them not identifying as “rational”. A rational person follows the evidence, he does not deny it. (Of course there are meta-rules, preponderance of evidence, independence of evidence, etc.)
I actually did ask the questions on a Christian bulletin board this afternoon. The first few responses have been pretty close to my expectations; we will see how things develop.
Upvoted for empirical testing, please followup!
However, I do note that ‘answers to a provocative question on a bulletin board, without the usual safety guards of scientific studies’ won’t be very strong evidence about ‘actual beliefs and/or behavior of people in hypothetical future situations’.
That is exactly why I would label them not identifying as “rational”. A rational person follows the evidence, he does not deny it.
That’s not necessarily true and I can illustrate it with an example from the other side. A devout atheist once told me that even if The Almighty Creator appeared to him personally; performed miracles; etc., he would still remain an atheist on the assumption that he was hallucinating. One can ask if such a person thinks of himself as anti-rational given his pre-announcement that he would reject evidence that disproves his beliefs. Seems to me the answer is pretty clearly “no” since he is still going out of his way to make sure that his beliefs are in line with his assessment of the evidence.
Upvoted for empirical testing, please followup!
However, I do note that ‘answers to a provocative question on a bulletin board, without the usual safety guards of scientific studies’ won’t be very strong evidence about ‘actual beliefs and/or behavior of people in hypothetical future situations’.
Well I agree it’s just an informal survey. But I do think it’s pretty revealing given the question on the table:
Do Christians make a big point of being anti-rational?
Of 4 or 5 responses, I would say that there is 1 where the poster sees himself as irrational.
Anyway, the original claim which sparked this discussion is that everyone thinks he is rational. Perhaps a better way to put it is that it’s pretty unusual for anyone to think his beliefs are irrational.
A devout atheist once told me that even if The Almighty Creator appeared to him personally; performed miracles; etc., he would still remain an atheist on the assumption that he was hallucinating.
And I wouldn’t call that person rational, either. He may want to be rational, and just be wrong about the how.
One can ask if such a person thinks of himself as anti-rational given his pre-announcement that he would reject as “not rational” or “not wanting to be rational” if they disagree.
I think the relevant (psychological and behavioral) difference here is between not being rational, i.e. not always following where rationality might lead you or denying a few specific conclusions, and being anti-rational, which I would describe as seeing rationality as an explicit enemy and therefore being against all things rational by association.
ETA: retracted. Some Christians are merely not rational, but some groups are explicitly anti-rational: they attack rationality, science, and evidence-based reasoning by association, even when they don’t disagree with the actual evidence or conclusions.
The Reddit thread is interesting. 5 isn’t a big sample, and we got examples basically of all points of view. My prediction was that:
most Christians, by far, would answer that they would rather have faith despite evidence, or that they would rather cling to evidence in their favor and disregard any contrary evidence.
By my count, of those Reddit respondents who explicitly answered the question, these match the prediction, given the most probable interpretation of their words: Luc-Pronounced_Luke, tinknal. EvanYork comes close but doesn’t explicitly address the hypothetical.
And these don’t: Mageddon725, rethcir_, Va1idation.
So my prediction of ‘most’ is falsified, but the study is very underpowered :-)
Anyway, the original claim which sparked this discussion is that everyone thinks he is rational. Perhaps a better way to put it is that it’s pretty unusual for anyone to think his beliefs are irrational.
I agree that it’s unusual. My original claim was that many more people don’t accept rationality as a valid or necessary criterion and don’t even try to evaluate their beliefs’ rationality. They don’t see themselves as irrational, but they do see themselves as “not rational”. And some of them further see themselves as anti-rational, and rationality as an enemy philosophy or dialectic.
And I wouldn’t call that person rational, either. He may want to be rational, and just be wrong about the how.
Well he might be rational and he might not be, but pretty clearly he perceives himself to be rational. Or at a minimum, he does not perceive himself to be not rational. Agreed?
Some Christians are merely not rational, but some groups are explicitly anti-rational: they attack rationality, science, and evidence-based reasoning by association, even when they don’t disagree with the actual evidence or conclusions.
Would you mind providing two or three quotes from Christians which manifest this attitude so I can understand and scrutinize your point?
The Reddit thread is interesting. 5 isn’t a big sample, and we got examples basically of all points of view.
That’s true. But I would say that of the 5, there was only one individual who doesn’t perceive himself to be rational. Two pretty clearly perceive themselves to be rational. And two are in a greyer area but pretty clearly would come up with rationalizations to justify their beliefs. Which is irrational but they don’t seem to perceive it as such.
I agree that it’s unusual. My original claim was that many more people don’t accept rationality as a valid or necessary criterion and don’t even try to evaluate their beliefs’ rationality.
Well, I agree that a lot of people might not have a clear opinion about whether their beliefs are rational. But the bottom line is that when push comes to shove, most people seem to believe that their beliefs are a reasonable evidence-based conclusion.
But I am interested to see quotes from these anti-rational Christians you refer to.
After some reflection, and looking for evidence, it seems I was wrong. I felt very certain of what I said, but then I looked for justification and didn’t find it. I’m sorry I led this conversation down a false trail. And thank you for questioning my claims and doing empirical tests.
(To be sure, I found some evidence, but it doesn’t add up to large, numerous, or representative groups of Christians holding these views. Or in fact for these views being associated with Christianity more than other religions or non-religious ‘mystical’ or ‘new age’ groups. Above all, it doesn’t seem these views have religion as their primary motivation. It’s not worth while looking into the examples I found if they’re not representative of larger groups.)
Well, as a Christian myself, allow me to provide a data point for your questions:
“Do you think the evidence goes more for or more against your belief in Christ?”
(from the grandparent post) More for.
young-earthers who obsess with clearly false evidence
Young-earthers fall into a trap; there are parts of the Bible that are not intended to be taken literally (Jesus’ parables are a good example). Genesis (at least the garden-of-eden section) is an example of this.
And then I would ask them: if the evidence was different and was in fact strongly against Christianity—if new evidence was found or existing evidence disproved—would you change your opinion and stop being a Christian?
It would have to be massively convincing evidence. I’m not sure that sufficient evidence can be found (but see next answer). I’ve seen stage magicians do some amazing things; the evidence would have to be convincing enough to convince me that it wasn’t someone, with all the skills of David Copperfield, intentionally pulling the wool over my eyes in some manner.
Would you want to change your opinion to match whatever the evidence turned out to be?
In the sense that I want my map to match the territory; yes. In the sense that I do not want the territory to be atheistic; no.
I wouldn’t mind so much if it turned out that (say) modern Judaism was 100% correct instead; it would be a big adjustment, but I think I could handle that much more easily. But the idea that there’s nothing in the place of God; the idea that there isn’t, in short, someone running the universe is one that I find extremely disquieting for some reason.
I imagine it’s kindof like the feeling one might get, imagining the situation of being in a chauffeur-driven bus, travelling at full speed, along with the rest of humanity, and suddenly discovering that there’s no-one behind the steering wheel and no-one on the bus can get into the front compartment.
the idea that there isn’t, in short, someone running the universe is one that I find extremely disquieting for some reason
If feels the same to me; I just believe it’s true.
I imagine it’s kindof like the feeling one might get, imagining the situation of being in a chauffeur-driven bus, travelling at full speed, along with the rest of humanity, and suddenly discovering that there’s no-one behind the steering wheel and no-one on the bus can get into the front compartment.
Let’s continue the same metaphor and imagine that many people in the bus decide to pretend that there is an invisible chauffeur and therefore everything is okay. This idea allows them to relax; at least partially (because parts of their minds are aware that the chauffeur should not be invisible, because that doesn’t make much sense). And whenever someone in the bus suggests that we should do our best to explore the bus and try getting to the front compartment, these people become angry and insist that such distrust of our good chauffeur is immoral, and getting to the front compartment is illegal. Instead we should just sit quietly and sing a happy song together.
Let’s continue the same metaphor and imagine that many people in the bus decide to pretend that there is an invisible chauffeur and therefore everything is okay. This idea allows them to relax; at least partially (because parts of their minds are aware that the chauffeur should not be invisible, because that doesn’t make much sense). And whenever someone in the bus suggests that we should do our best to explore the bus and try getting to the front compartment, these people become angry and insist that such distrust of our good chauffeur is immoral, and getting to the front compartment is illegal. Instead we should just sit quietly and sing a happy song together.
...I’m not sure this metaphor can take this sort of strain. (Of course, it makes a difference if you can see into the front compartment; I’d assumed an opaque front compartment that couldn’t be seen into from the rest of the bus).
Personally, I don’t have any problem with people trying to, in effect, get into the front compartment. As long as it’s done in an ethical way, of course (so, for example, if it involves killing people, then no; but even then, what I’d object to is the killing, not the getting-into-the-front). I do think it makes a lot of sense to try to explore the rest of the bus; the more we find out about the universe, the more effect we can have on it; and the more effect we can have on the universe, the more good we can do. (Also, the more evil we can do; but I’m optimistic enough to believe that humanity is more good than evil, on balance. Despite the actions of a few particularly nasty examples).
As I like to phrase it: God gave us brains. Presumably He expected us to use them.
I assumed the front compartment was completely opaque in the past, and parts of it are gradually made transparent by science. Some people, less and less credibly, argue that the chauffeur has a weird body shape and still may be hidden behing the remaining opaque parts. But the smarter ones can already predict where this goes, so they already hypothesise an invisible chauffeur (separate magisteria, etc.). Most people probably believe some mix, like the chauffeur is partially transparent and partially visible, and the transparent and visible parts of the chauffeur’s body happen to correspond to the parts they can and cannot see from their seats.
Okay, I like your attitude. You probably wouldn’t ban teaching evolutionary biology at schools.
I think this is the point at which the metaphor has become more of an impediment to communication than anything else. I recognise what I think you’re referring to; it’s the idea of the God of the gaps (in short, the idea that God is responsible for everything that science has yet to explain; which starts leading to questions as soon as science explains something new).
As an argument for theism, the idea that God is only responsible for things that haven’t yet been otherwise explained is pretty thoroughly flawed to start with. (I can go into quite a bit more detail if you like).
Okay, I like your attitude. You probably wouldn’t ban teaching evolutionary biology at schools.
No, I most certainly would not. Personally, I think that the entire evolution debate has been hyped up to an incredible degree by a few loud voices, for absolutely no good reason; there’s nothing in the theory of evolution that runs contrary to the idea that the universe is created. Evolution just gives us a glimpse at the mechanisms of that creation.
I imagine it’s kindof like the feeling one might get, imagining the situation of being in a chauffeur-driven bus, travelling at full speed, along with the rest of humanity, and suddenly discovering that there’s no-one behind the steering wheel and no-one on the bus can get into the front compartment.
This is precisely how I feel about humanity. I mean, we came from within a hair’s breadth of annihilating all human life on the planet during the cold war, for pete’s sake. Now that didn’t come to pass, but if you look at all the atrocities that did happen during the history of humanity… even if you’re right and there is a driver, he is most surely drunk behind the wheel.
Still, I can sympathise. After all, people also generally prefer to have an actual person piloting their plane, even if the auto-pilot is better (or so I’ve read). There seems to be some primal desire to want someone to be in charge. Or as the Joker put it: “Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if that plan is horrifying.”
I mean, we came from within a hair’s breadth of annihilating all human life on the planet during the cold war, for pete’s sake. Now that didn’t come to pass, but if you look at all the atrocities that did happen during the history of humanity…
Atrocities in general are a point worth considering. They make it clear that, even given the existence of God, there’s a lot of agency being given to the human race; it’s up to us as a race to not mess up totally, and to face the consequences of the actions of others.
I find your post very interesting, because I tend to respond almost exactly the same way when someone asks me why I’m an atheist. The one difference is the “extremely disquieting” part; I find it hard to relate to that. From my point of view, reality is what it is; i.e., it’s emotionally neutral.
Anyway, I find it really curious that we can disagree so completely while employing seemingly identical lines of reasoning. I’m itching to ask you some questions about your position, but I don’t want to derail the thread, or to give the impression of getting all up in your business, as it were...
Reality stops being emotionally neutral when it affects me directly. If I were to wake up to find that my bed has been moved to a hovering platform over a volcano, then I will most assuredly not be emotionally neutral about the discovery (I expect I would experience shock, terror, and lots and lots of confusion).
I’m itching to ask you some questions about your position
Well, I’d be quite willing to answer them. Maybe you could open up a new thread in Discussion, and link to it from here?
I think we’re getting some word-confusion. Groups that claim “make a big point of being anti-rational” are against the things with the label “rational”. However they do tend to think of their own beliefs as being well thought out (i.e. rational).
No, I think we’re using words the same way. I disagree with your statement that all or most groups “think of their own beliefs as being well thought out (i.e. rational).”. They think of their beliefs of being right, but not well thought out.
“Well thought out” should mean:
Being arrived at through thought (science, philosophy, discovery, invention), rather than writing the bottom line first and justifying it later or not at all (revelation, mysticism, faith deliberately countering evidence, denial of the existence of objective truth).
Thought out to its logical consequences, without being selective about which conclusions you adopt or compartmentalizing them, making sure there are no internal contradictions, and dealing with any repugnant conclusions.
The comment you link to gives a very interesting description of faith:
The sense of “obligation” in faith is that of duty, trust, and deference to those who deserve it. If someone deserves our trust, then it feels wrong, or insolent, or at least rude, to demand independent evidence for their claims.
I like that analysis! And I would add: obligation to your social superiors, and to your actual legal superiors (in a traditional society), is a very strong requirement and to deny faith is not merely to be rude, but to rebel against the social structure which is inseparable from institutionalized religion.
However, I think this is more of an explanation of how faith operates, not what it feels like or how faithful people describe it. It’s a good analysis of the social phenomenon of faith from the outside, but it’s not a good description of how it feels from the inside to be faithful.
This is because the faith actually required of religious people is faith in the existence of God and other non-evident truths claimed by their religion. As a faithful person, you can’t feel faith is “duty, trust, obligation”—you feel that is is belief. You can’t feel that to be unfaithful would be to wrong someone or to rebel; you feel that it would be to be wrong about how the world really is.
However, I’ve now read Wikipedia on Faith in Christianity and I see there are a lot of complex opinions about the meaning of this word. So now I’m less sure of my opinion. I’m still not convinced that most Christians mean “duty, trust, deference” when they say “faith”, because WP quotes many who disagree and think it means “belief”.
For everyone who thinks that they are rational, consider a) Are you in the healthy weight range? b) Did you get the optimum amount of exercise this week? c) Are your retirement savings on track? d) Did you waste zero time today? (I score 2⁄4).
That sentence motivated me to overcome the trivial inconvenience of logging in on my phone so I could up vote it.
a) Why do you expect a rational person would necessarily avoid the environmental problems that cause overweight and obesity? Especially given that scientists are very unclear amongst themselves as to what causes obesity and weight gain? Even if you adhere to the notion that weight gain and loss is simply a matter of calorie consumption and willpower, why would you assume a rational person has more willpower?
b) Why do you expect that a rational person would necessarily value the optimum amount of exercise (presumably optimal for health) over everything else they might have done with their time this week? And again given that scientists have even less certainty about the optimum amount or type of exercise, than they do about the optimum amount of food we should eat.
c) Why do you assume that a rational person is financially able to save for retirement? There are many people on this planet who live on less than a dollar a day. Does being born poor imply a lack of rationality?
d) Why do you assume a rational person does not waste time on occasion?
Rationality is not a superpower. It does not magically produce health, wealth, or productivity. It may assist in the achievement of those and other goals, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient.
c) Why do you assume that a rational person is financially able to save for retirement? There are many people on this planet who live on less than a dollar a day. Does being born poor imply a lack of rationality?
The question was directed at people discussing rationality on the internet. If you can afford some means of internet access, you are almost certainly not living on less than a dollar a day.
I receive less in SSI than I’m paying on college debt (no degree), am legally blind, unemployed, and have internet access because these leave me with no choice but to live with my parents (no friends within 100mi). Saving for retirement is way off my radar.
(I do have more to say on how I’ve handled this, but it seems more appropriate for the rationality diaries. I will ETA a link if I make such a comment.)
Why do you expect a rational person would necessarily avoid the environmental problems that cause overweight and obesity? Especially given that scientists are very unclear amongst themselves as to what causes obesity and weight gain? Even if you adhere to the notion that weight gain and loss is simply a matter of calorie consumption and willpower, why would you assume a rational person has more willpower?
A more rational person might have a better understanding of how his mind works and use that understanding to deploy his limited willpower to maximum effect.
d) Why do you assume a rational person does not waste time on occasion?
Even if producing no external output, one can still use time rather than waste it. waveman’s post is about the emotional difficulties of being effective- and so to the extent that rationality is about winning, a rational person has mastered those difficulties.
Why do you expect that a rational person would necessarily value the optimum amount of exercise (presumably optimal for health) over everything else they might have done with their time this week?
Most likely because getting regular exercise is a pretty good investment of time. Of course some people might rationally choose not to make the investment for whatever reason, but if someone doesn’t exercise regularly there is an excellent chance that it’s akrasia at work.
One can ask if rational people are less likely to fall victim to akrasia. My guess is that they are, since a rational person is likely to have a better understanding of how his brain works. So he is in a better position to come up with ways to act consistently with his better judgment.
For everyone who thinks that they are rational, consider a) Are you in the healthy weight range? b) Did you get the optimum amount of exercise this week? c) Are your retirement savings on track? d) Did you waste zero time today? (I score 2⁄4).
I wasted some time today. Is 3-4 times per week of strength training and 1⁄2 hour cardio enough exercise? Then I think I get 3⁄4. Woot, but I actually don’t see the point of the exercise, since I don’t even aspire to be perfectly rational (especially since I don’t know what I would be perfectly rational about).
Everyone (and every group) thinks they are rational. This is not a distinctive feature of LW. Christianity and Buddhism make a lot of their rationality. Even Nietzsche acknowledged that it was the rationality of Christianity that led to its intellectual demise (as he saw it), as people relentlessly applied rationality tools to Christianity.
My own model of how rational we are is more in line with Ed Seykota’s (http://www.seykota.com/tribe/TT_Process/index.htm) than the typical geek model that we are basically rational with a few “biases” added on top. Ed Seykota was a very successful trader, featured in the book “Market Wizards” who concluded that trading success is not that difficult intellectually, the issues are all on the feelings side. He talks about trading but the concepts apply across the board.
For everyone who thinks that they are rational, consider a) Are you in the healthy weight range? b) Did you get the optimum amount of exercise this week? c) Are your retirement savings on track? d) Did you waste zero time today? (I score 2⁄4).
Personally I think it would be progress if we took as a starting point the assumption that most of the things we believe are not rational. That everything needs to be stringently tested. That taking someone’s word for it, unless they have truly earned it, does not make sense.
Also: I totally agree with OP that it is routine to see intelligent people who think of themselves as rational doing things and believing things that are complete nonsense. Intelligence and rationality are, to a first approximation, orthogonal.
To the contrary, lots of groups make a big point of being anti-rational. Many groups (religious, new-age, political, etc.) align themselves in anti-scientific or anti-evidential ways. Most Christians, to make an example, assign supreme importance to (blind) faith that triumphs over evidence.
But more generally, humans are a-rational by default. Few individuals or groups are willing to question their most cherished beliefs, to explicitly provide reasons for beliefs, or to update on new evidence. Epistemic rationality is not the human default and needs to be deliberately researched, taught and trained.
And people, in general, don’t think of themselves as being rational because they don’t have a well-defined, salient concept of rationality. They think of themselves as being right.
Here’s a hypothetical for you: Suppose you were to ask a Christian “Do you think the evidence goes more for or more against your belief in Christ?” How do you think a typical Christian would respond? I think most Christians would respond that the evidence goes more in favor of their beliefs.
I think the word “evidence” is associated with being pro-science and therefore, in most people’s heads, anti-religion. So many Christians would respond by e.g. asking to define “evidence” more narrowly before they committed to an answer.
Also, the evidence claimed in favor of Christianity is mostly associated with the more fundamentalist interpretations; e.g. young-earthers who obsess with clearly false evidence vs. Catholics who accept evolution and merely claim a non-falsifiable Godly guidance. And there are fewer fundamentalists than there are ‘moderates’.
However, suppose a Christian responded that the evidence is in the favor of Christianity. And then I would ask them: if the evidence was different and was in fact strongly against Christianity—if new evidence was found or existing evidence disproved—would you change your opinion and stop being a Christian? Would you want to change your opinion to match whatever the evidence turned out to be?
And I think most Christians, by far, would answer that they would rather have faith despite evidence, or that they would rather cling to evidence in their favor and disregard any contrary evidence.
I doubt it. That may be how their brains work, but I doubt they would admit that they would cling to beliefs against the evidence. More likely they would insist that such a situation could never happen; that the contrary evidence must be fraudulent in some way.
I actually did ask the questions on a Christian bulletin board this afternoon. The first few responses have been pretty close to my expectations; we will see how things develop.
That is exactly why I would label them not identifying as “rational”. A rational person follows the evidence, he does not deny it. (Of course there are meta-rules, preponderance of evidence, independence of evidence, etc.)
Upvoted for empirical testing, please followup!
However, I do note that ‘answers to a provocative question on a bulletin board, without the usual safety guards of scientific studies’ won’t be very strong evidence about ‘actual beliefs and/or behavior of people in hypothetical future situations’.
That’s not necessarily true and I can illustrate it with an example from the other side. A devout atheist once told me that even if The Almighty Creator appeared to him personally; performed miracles; etc., he would still remain an atheist on the assumption that he was hallucinating. One can ask if such a person thinks of himself as anti-rational given his pre-announcement that he would reject evidence that disproves his beliefs. Seems to me the answer is pretty clearly “no” since he is still going out of his way to make sure that his beliefs are in line with his assessment of the evidence.
Well I agree it’s just an informal survey. But I do think it’s pretty revealing given the question on the table:
Do Christians make a big point of being anti-rational?
Here’s the thread:
http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueChristian/comments/1zd9t1/does_the_evidence_support_your_beliefs/
Of 4 or 5 responses, I would say that there is 1 where the poster sees himself as irrational.
Anyway, the original claim which sparked this discussion is that everyone thinks he is rational. Perhaps a better way to put it is that it’s pretty unusual for anyone to think his beliefs are irrational.
And I wouldn’t call that person rational, either. He may want to be rational, and just be wrong about the how.
I think the relevant (psychological and behavioral) difference here is between not being rational, i.e. not always following where rationality might lead you or denying a few specific conclusions, and being anti-rational, which I would describe as seeing rationality as an explicit enemy and therefore being against all things rational by association.
ETA: retracted. Some Christians are merely not rational, but some groups are explicitly anti-rational: they attack rationality, science, and evidence-based reasoning by association, even when they don’t disagree with the actual evidence or conclusions.
The Reddit thread is interesting. 5 isn’t a big sample, and we got examples basically of all points of view. My prediction was that:
By my count, of those Reddit respondents who explicitly answered the question, these match the prediction, given the most probable interpretation of their words: Luc-Pronounced_Luke, tinknal. EvanYork comes close but doesn’t explicitly address the hypothetical.
And these don’t: Mageddon725, rethcir_, Va1idation.
So my prediction of ‘most’ is falsified, but the study is very underpowered :-)
I agree that it’s unusual. My original claim was that many more people don’t accept rationality as a valid or necessary criterion and don’t even try to evaluate their beliefs’ rationality. They don’t see themselves as irrational, but they do see themselves as “not rational”. And some of them further see themselves as anti-rational, and rationality as an enemy philosophy or dialectic.
Well he might be rational and he might not be, but pretty clearly he perceives himself to be rational. Or at a minimum, he does not perceive himself to be not rational. Agreed?
Would you mind providing two or three quotes from Christians which manifest this attitude so I can understand and scrutinize your point?
That’s true. But I would say that of the 5, there was only one individual who doesn’t perceive himself to be rational. Two pretty clearly perceive themselves to be rational. And two are in a greyer area but pretty clearly would come up with rationalizations to justify their beliefs. Which is irrational but they don’t seem to perceive it as such.
Well, I agree that a lot of people might not have a clear opinion about whether their beliefs are rational. But the bottom line is that when push comes to shove, most people seem to believe that their beliefs are a reasonable evidence-based conclusion.
But I am interested to see quotes from these anti-rational Christians you refer to.
After some reflection, and looking for evidence, it seems I was wrong. I felt very certain of what I said, but then I looked for justification and didn’t find it. I’m sorry I led this conversation down a false trail. And thank you for questioning my claims and doing empirical tests.
(To be sure, I found some evidence, but it doesn’t add up to large, numerous, or representative groups of Christians holding these views. Or in fact for these views being associated with Christianity more than other religions or non-religious ‘mystical’ or ‘new age’ groups. Above all, it doesn’t seem these views have religion as their primary motivation. It’s not worth while looking into the examples I found if they’re not representative of larger groups.)
Well, as a Christian myself, allow me to provide a data point for your questions:
(from the grandparent post) More for.
Young-earthers fall into a trap; there are parts of the Bible that are not intended to be taken literally (Jesus’ parables are a good example). Genesis (at least the garden-of-eden section) is an example of this.
It would have to be massively convincing evidence. I’m not sure that sufficient evidence can be found (but see next answer). I’ve seen stage magicians do some amazing things; the evidence would have to be convincing enough to convince me that it wasn’t someone, with all the skills of David Copperfield, intentionally pulling the wool over my eyes in some manner.
In the sense that I want my map to match the territory; yes. In the sense that I do not want the territory to be atheistic; no.
I wouldn’t mind so much if it turned out that (say) modern Judaism was 100% correct instead; it would be a big adjustment, but I think I could handle that much more easily. But the idea that there’s nothing in the place of God; the idea that there isn’t, in short, someone running the universe is one that I find extremely disquieting for some reason.
I imagine it’s kindof like the feeling one might get, imagining the situation of being in a chauffeur-driven bus, travelling at full speed, along with the rest of humanity, and suddenly discovering that there’s no-one behind the steering wheel and no-one on the bus can get into the front compartment.
...extremely disquieting.
If feels the same to me; I just believe it’s true.
Let’s continue the same metaphor and imagine that many people in the bus decide to pretend that there is an invisible chauffeur and therefore everything is okay. This idea allows them to relax; at least partially (because parts of their minds are aware that the chauffeur should not be invisible, because that doesn’t make much sense). And whenever someone in the bus suggests that we should do our best to explore the bus and try getting to the front compartment, these people become angry and insist that such distrust of our good chauffeur is immoral, and getting to the front compartment is illegal. Instead we should just sit quietly and sing a happy song together.
...I’m not sure this metaphor can take this sort of strain. (Of course, it makes a difference if you can see into the front compartment; I’d assumed an opaque front compartment that couldn’t be seen into from the rest of the bus).
Personally, I don’t have any problem with people trying to, in effect, get into the front compartment. As long as it’s done in an ethical way, of course (so, for example, if it involves killing people, then no; but even then, what I’d object to is the killing, not the getting-into-the-front). I do think it makes a lot of sense to try to explore the rest of the bus; the more we find out about the universe, the more effect we can have on it; and the more effect we can have on the universe, the more good we can do. (Also, the more evil we can do; but I’m optimistic enough to believe that humanity is more good than evil, on balance. Despite the actions of a few particularly nasty examples).
As I like to phrase it: God gave us brains. Presumably He expected us to use them.
I assumed the front compartment was completely opaque in the past, and parts of it are gradually made transparent by science. Some people, less and less credibly, argue that the chauffeur has a weird body shape and still may be hidden behing the remaining opaque parts. But the smarter ones can already predict where this goes, so they already hypothesise an invisible chauffeur (separate magisteria, etc.). Most people probably believe some mix, like the chauffeur is partially transparent and partially visible, and the transparent and visible parts of the chauffeur’s body happen to correspond to the parts they can and cannot see from their seats.
Okay, I like your attitude. You probably wouldn’t ban teaching evolutionary biology at schools.
I think this is the point at which the metaphor has become more of an impediment to communication than anything else. I recognise what I think you’re referring to; it’s the idea of the God of the gaps (in short, the idea that God is responsible for everything that science has yet to explain; which starts leading to questions as soon as science explains something new).
As an argument for theism, the idea that God is only responsible for things that haven’t yet been otherwise explained is pretty thoroughly flawed to start with. (I can go into quite a bit more detail if you like).
No, I most certainly would not. Personally, I think that the entire evolution debate has been hyped up to an incredible degree by a few loud voices, for absolutely no good reason; there’s nothing in the theory of evolution that runs contrary to the idea that the universe is created. Evolution just gives us a glimpse at the mechanisms of that creation.
This is precisely how I feel about humanity. I mean, we came from within a hair’s breadth of annihilating all human life on the planet during the cold war, for pete’s sake. Now that didn’t come to pass, but if you look at all the atrocities that did happen during the history of humanity… even if you’re right and there is a driver, he is most surely drunk behind the wheel.
Still, I can sympathise. After all, people also generally prefer to have an actual person piloting their plane, even if the auto-pilot is better (or so I’ve read). There seems to be some primal desire to want someone to be in charge. Or as the Joker put it: “Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if that plan is horrifying.”
Atrocities in general are a point worth considering. They make it clear that, even given the existence of God, there’s a lot of agency being given to the human race; it’s up to us as a race to not mess up totally, and to face the consequences of the actions of others.
I find your post very interesting, because I tend to respond almost exactly the same way when someone asks me why I’m an atheist. The one difference is the “extremely disquieting” part; I find it hard to relate to that. From my point of view, reality is what it is; i.e., it’s emotionally neutral.
Anyway, I find it really curious that we can disagree so completely while employing seemingly identical lines of reasoning. I’m itching to ask you some questions about your position, but I don’t want to derail the thread, or to give the impression of getting all up in your business, as it were...
Reality stops being emotionally neutral when it affects me directly. If I were to wake up to find that my bed has been moved to a hovering platform over a volcano, then I will most assuredly not be emotionally neutral about the discovery (I expect I would experience shock, terror, and lots and lots of confusion).
Well, I’d be quite willing to answer them. Maybe you could open up a new thread in Discussion, and link to it from here?
I think we’re getting some word-confusion. Groups that claim “make a big point of being anti-rational” are against the things with the label “rational”. However they do tend to think of their own beliefs as being well thought out (i.e. rational).
No, I think we’re using words the same way. I disagree with your statement that all or most groups “think of their own beliefs as being well thought out (i.e. rational).”. They think of their beliefs of being right, but not well thought out.
“Well thought out” should mean:
Being arrived at through thought (science, philosophy, discovery, invention), rather than writing the bottom line first and justifying it later or not at all (revelation, mysticism, faith deliberately countering evidence, denial of the existence of objective truth).
Thought out to its logical consequences, without being selective about which conclusions you adopt or compartmentalizing them, making sure there are no internal contradictions, and dealing with any repugnant conclusions.
That’s not what most Christians mean by faith.
The comment you link to gives a very interesting description of faith:
I like that analysis! And I would add: obligation to your social superiors, and to your actual legal superiors (in a traditional society), is a very strong requirement and to deny faith is not merely to be rude, but to rebel against the social structure which is inseparable from institutionalized religion.
However, I think this is more of an explanation of how faith operates, not what it feels like or how faithful people describe it. It’s a good analysis of the social phenomenon of faith from the outside, but it’s not a good description of how it feels from the inside to be faithful.
This is because the faith actually required of religious people is faith in the existence of God and other non-evident truths claimed by their religion. As a faithful person, you can’t feel faith is “duty, trust, obligation”—you feel that is is belief. You can’t feel that to be unfaithful would be to wrong someone or to rebel; you feel that it would be to be wrong about how the world really is.
However, I’ve now read Wikipedia on Faith in Christianity and I see there are a lot of complex opinions about the meaning of this word. So now I’m less sure of my opinion. I’m still not convinced that most Christians mean “duty, trust, deference” when they say “faith”, because WP quotes many who disagree and think it means “belief”.
That sentence motivated me to overcome the trivial inconvenience of logging in on my phone so I could up vote it.
a) Why do you expect a rational person would necessarily avoid the environmental problems that cause overweight and obesity? Especially given that scientists are very unclear amongst themselves as to what causes obesity and weight gain? Even if you adhere to the notion that weight gain and loss is simply a matter of calorie consumption and willpower, why would you assume a rational person has more willpower?
b) Why do you expect that a rational person would necessarily value the optimum amount of exercise (presumably optimal for health) over everything else they might have done with their time this week? And again given that scientists have even less certainty about the optimum amount or type of exercise, than they do about the optimum amount of food we should eat.
c) Why do you assume that a rational person is financially able to save for retirement? There are many people on this planet who live on less than a dollar a day. Does being born poor imply a lack of rationality?
d) Why do you assume a rational person does not waste time on occasion?
Rationality is not a superpower. It does not magically produce health, wealth, or productivity. It may assist in the achievement of those and other goals, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient.
The question was directed at people discussing rationality on the internet. If you can afford some means of internet access, you are almost certainly not living on less than a dollar a day.
I receive less in SSI than I’m paying on college debt (no degree), am legally blind, unemployed, and have internet access because these leave me with no choice but to live with my parents (no friends within 100mi). Saving for retirement is way off my radar.
(I do have more to say on how I’ve handled this, but it seems more appropriate for the rationality diaries. I will ETA a link if I make such a comment.)
A more rational person might have a better understanding of how his mind works and use that understanding to deploy his limited willpower to maximum effect.
Even if producing no external output, one can still use time rather than waste it. waveman’s post is about the emotional difficulties of being effective- and so to the extent that rationality is about winning, a rational person has mastered those difficulties.
Most likely because getting regular exercise is a pretty good investment of time. Of course some people might rationally choose not to make the investment for whatever reason, but if someone doesn’t exercise regularly there is an excellent chance that it’s akrasia at work.
One can ask if rational people are less likely to fall victim to akrasia. My guess is that they are, since a rational person is likely to have a better understanding of how his brain works. So he is in a better position to come up with ways to act consistently with his better judgment.
I wasted some time today. Is 3-4 times per week of strength training and 1⁄2 hour cardio enough exercise? Then I think I get 3⁄4. Woot, but I actually don’t see the point of the exercise, since I don’t even aspire to be perfectly rational (especially since I don’t know what I would be perfectly rational about).